


Skin And Bones

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Aftermath, Attempted Rape, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:12:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the kink meme that suggested Emma Frost implanting a hideous compulsion in Erik's head; not completely carried out because Charles can take care of himself when threatened, but still terrifying. But not enough to break them apart, because they won't let that happen. Aftermath, Erik and Charles holding each other, hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skin And Bones

**Author's Note:**

> I almost didn't finish this one, because I had a hard time getting the emotion right, and then I had a really terrible nightmare (no, I'm not giving details), and suddenly there it was. Title and opening lines from the Foo Fighters song of that name.

_skin and bones  
skin and bones  
don’t you know  
I’m just skin and bones_

  
Back from Russia. It had been a success. They’d made fantastic progress.   
  
They’d found Emma Frost, and learned what she knew. She had smiled at them, a little nastily, as they’d left her; Erik had heard her voice in his head, cold and sharp and nothing like Charles’s loving warmth, as he’d turned to go, but even her parting shot of _Enjoy your evening, boys_ couldn’t bother him. Did it matter, if she knew that he and Charles were lovers? She could tell that to Shaw if she wanted to; it wouldn’t make a difference, because he and Charles were stronger together regardless of who knew what about them.   
  
Tonight, they were steps closer to finding Shaw, and saving the world, and every other good thing anyone might’ve wanted. The emotion in his chest, Erik decided, was a lot like excitement. Anticipation.   
  
Even the familiar cozy space of home practically hummed with it. The books watched over them companionably from the tall shelves, and the metal-capped pens on the desk quivered in response to his thoughts. And then, surprised, Erik realized he’d just thought the word _home_. About the mansion. About Charles’s rooms.  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous, Erik, they’re our rooms.” Charles raised an eyebrow at him. “Unless you’re planning to sleep somewhere else, and I haven’t been informed.”  
  
Erik found himself smiling at that, because it felt so right. Because Charles was smiling at him. Because Charles had followed him into enemy territory and they’d both come out alive. Because they were home. In _their_ rooms.  
  
 _I love you, you know,_ Charles murmured into his head, and then added, “Though it’s been your move for about fifteen minutes. Are you planning to move that rook, tonight, or just grin at it?”  
  
 _I love you, too._ “Patience is a virtue, Charles.”  
  
“Yes, but I’m winning. And I believe, if you lose that rook, I get to make you remove your shirt.”  
  
“So we’re both winning.” He moved the rook. Charles grinned. “Are you certain you’d like to do that?”  
  
“Very certain.”  
  
The night, around them, was unseasonably warm; they hadn’t even bothered to light the fire in the cavernous fireplace. Outside, fireflies, confused by the weather, hopped around the window, and scurried away; Charles watched them with delight. He’d rolled up both sleeves and unbuttoned his shirt partway, and the comfortable warmth of the evening rested against bared skin like a caress. Erik had plans for that skin, but later. They had a game to finish first.  
  
“Plans, hmm?”  
  
“So easily distracted, Charles. Make your move.”  
  
“Yes, well, despite you and your distractions, I’m still winning.” Charles reached out to pick up his knight, and Erik’s hand shot out to grab his wrist.  
  
Charles paused, regarding him with surprise, and there was a terrible moment in which Erik knew that something was very wrong, and Charles did not.  
  
Charles’s eyes went wide. “Erik—-”  
  
The poker yanked itself away from the fireplace with a shriek, and two metal bookends spun out of the shelves, and somehow Charles was on the floor, metal pinning his hands viciously to the carpet, pulling his legs down and apart.  
  
The books, the ones that had been sitting between those traitorous bookends, fell over with a crash like the toppling of the world.   
  
Erik tried to shout, tried to explain—it wasn’t him, it _wasn’t_ , except somehow, dreadfully, it was—but he couldn’t talk. Something, some force, wouldn’t let his voice out of his throat.  
  
 _Charles, it’s not me!  
  
I know it isn’t—you wouldn’t—_Charles fought against bruising metal, ineffectively. _Do you have any control over it at all?  
  
No! _Unbidden, Emma Frost’s face floated up between them, smiling that little, satisfied smile. Of course she would want them both to know what she had done. _She did this!  
  
All right, if she can do it, I can undo it—_Charles was clearly trying to sound calm. He almost succeeded, but then Erik’s weight came down on top of him and suddenly there was something in his eyes that looked a lot like fear.  
  
The fear was justified. Erik could feel the disgusting, ugly compulsion inside him, lust that wasn’t his, the desire to take and hurt and—  
  
 _Charles, this isn’t me, I swear!_ And Charles believed him, completely; Erik could feel it. Why? How could he be so sure, when it was Erik’s power that was tugging his legs apart, Erik’s hands against his skin?  
  
 _Because I know you!_ Charles shouted that at him with enough clarity to get through the maelstrom of panic in his head. _I know you, and this isn’t you, you wouldn’t do this, it’s her!_  
  
The silver-plated letter-opener leapt from the desk and made a small horrible indentation in the graceful line of Charles’s throat. Charles froze beneath him. _Erik—  
  
Stop me!  
  
I don’t want to hurt you—  
  
I’m about to hurt YOU! Do something!_  
  
His hands weren’t his own any more. They stripped away clothing with ruthless efficiency. One of them came down over Charles’s face, covering his nose and mouth.  
  
 _Please make me stop!  
  
Erik, I can’t breathe—_  
  
With desperate effort, Erik managed to slide his hand over a few centimeters. Charles gasped, taking in air. But something even more awful was happening, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fight that one. Charles, realizing it and terrified now, tried to pull away from the invasion, and the letter opener drew a thin trickle of blood from his skin. Erik could see, in the shocked blueness of his eyes, the exact horror that they both were feeling.   
  
_Do something! Anything! Hurt me if you have to, I don’t care, just don’t let me do this to you!  
  
I can’t think—_  
  
The compulsion demanded that he _move_ , and Charles’s voice collapsed into wordless pain.  
  
 _Charles!!_ No answer. Just the pain. _I can’t—_ He pushed forward again. He couldn’t help it. Agony stabbed through both of them. But it was only Charles who had screamed.  
  
Abruptly, silence. Out loud, and in his head. Erik couldn’t move, dreading what might have happened, and then realized that he actually _couldn’t_ move, even when he tried. _Charles—?  
  
I’m here. I’m all right. _That was definitely Charles’s voice, but…eerily calm. Detached.  
  
 _You are NOT all right! I felt—  
  
I know—I’m not—I’m just not letting myself feel anything right now. I’ve…turned some things off for the moment. Please try to be calm; I think I can keep you from doing anything else, but if you can relax it’ll make this easier._  
  
Erik tried to relax, and failed. What had he done to Charles? What had Charles done to _himself?  
  
That—what I’m doing now—it isn’t permanent, I promise you. I really don’t think I could maintain it for very long even in other circumstances; it takes some effort to—well, the details aren’t important. Now, we’re in your head—_and they were.   
  
_Look around,_ Charles told him. _Do you see anything out of place? Anything that shouldn’t be here?_  
  
Erik looked, desperately. Little bits of himself glanced back up at him like broken mirrors. Rain falling out of the sky on a grey afternoon. A coin in a laboratory. The taste of pineapple. Shaw. The chill of deep ocean water. Warm fingertips and fuzzy sweaters. Charles.   
  
_I don’t—  
  
Keep looking._  
  
He felt it before he saw it: a hulking black sensation of wrongness hiding in a darkened corner behind a huddle of old memories. A foreign body. A cancer.   
  
_Ah,_ Charles said, sounding almost disappointed. _Powerful, but surprisingly crude. I can handle that, I think._  
  
Erik stared at the amorphous blackness, and hated it with absolute clarity. He wanted it gone. Out of him. Dead.  
  
 _That helps, actually, keep thinking that way. Let me see…_  
  
Abruptly, the compulsion—and Charles—winked out. Erik, alone in his head, panicked. He still couldn’t move. _Charles!  
  
Sorry, sorry! I’m here, I just had to make sure it was completely gone. I’m going to give you back control of your body now. Ah…try not to move too quickly, if you would._  
  
Erik blinked, and found himself alone behind his eyes. His body was entirely his again, bones and muscles and sensations, and he could feel everything he’d just done. Everything he was still doing, because neither of them had moved yet, and he was still—  
  
The letter opener fell away from Charles’s throat with a dull clatter. So did the restraints holding him in place. Charles breathed in, deeply—Erik felt the rise and fall of it like an affirmation of life—but did not, otherwise, stir.  
  
He wanted to fling himself backward, away from Charles, out of the room, out of his own skin, as far from this as possible, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt Charles any more.  
  
Charles had asked him not to go quickly, and so he tried to be careful. He had to look, in order to do that. He saw tiny flecks of redness, scattered in obscenely festive decoration across pale skin, and he knew that it was blood—he could feel the iron in it—but he couldn’t think about that because he might throw up, or scream, or go insane.  
  
Charles still hadn’t moved by the time Erik collapsed backwards against the solid oak of the desk. The aged wood offered sturdy but still inadequate support; if it hadn’t been there, he would’ve ended up flat on the floor, with nothing to lean against, but that fact barely registered.  
  
Around them, the familiar furniture—the ceiling-high bookshelves, the oversized pillows on the couch—loomed ominously, no longer comfortable. The grey maw of the fireplace gaped at them from the other side of the desk. Condemning, claustrophobic. His gaze landed on the fallen letter-opener, where it had hit the floor, and he wondered how much force it would take to drive it through his own skull.  
  
Charles, very slowly, curled into a tiny ball, as if trying to make himself as small as possible. He was shaking. Erik gazed downward, at his own hands. Those were shaking, too.   
  
“Charles…” It was the first time either of them had spoken, and the silence of the room crushed his voice into insignificance. His chest hurt, too. Heartbreak was physical. How strange.  
  
Where was everyone? Why hadn’t anyone heard what he had done, and why weren’t they running up the stairs and breaking down the door?  
  
Charles stirred, just a little, at that. _Because I made certain no one heard._  
  
Erik stared at him. How had Charles had the presence of mind to do that, during…well. During. He couldn’t give it a name. Names would solidify the horror, call it out into being in the ruined space between them.  
  
 _I didn’t think anyone else needed to be hurt. Besides…we can deal with this together. You, and me._  
  
They could? Erik breathed in, for the first time in what might’ve been eternity; the air felt like little knives stabbing at his lungs, sharp and cold. Earlier the night had been warm, he remembered.  
  
 _Yes, we can.  
  
How can you—how do you know?  
  
I don’t know, Erik. I just hope so. Could you come over here?_  
  
Very carefully, Erik eased himself away from the desk and over next to Charles, who remained in his withdrawn curl but reached out both hands, like an offering. Erik took them.  
  
 _Charles, your hands are cold.  
  
I know. I’m sorry. I—_Charles started crying. Erik, shocked—Charles never cried on his own behalf, only for other people—automatically put both arms around him, and then, horrified, realized how awful an idea that might be. He started to let go, and Charles said, _No, please stay. I’m sorry. It’s just the reaction.  
  
Stop apologizing to me! _Charles flinched; too forceful. Erik hated himself a little more. _Charles, I’m sorry. I’m so—_ Sorry wasn’t enough. No words were enough.   
  
_Please don’t apologize to me, Charles,_ he tried. _None of this was your fault._ He couldn’t tell, looking down at closed eyes, whether Charles heard, or believed, that statement.  
  
But one cold hand squeezed his, lightly. _It wasn’t your fault, either. It wasn’t you.  
  
It was her. Emma Frost.  
  
Yes.  
  
I’m going to kill her for doing this to you. To us. _He meant it, with every last violated and furious atom of his being.  
  
Charles actually opened his eyes. They were still the same blue. That, at least, hadn’t changed. _No.  
  
What do you mean, no?! You—I felt—_An image of blood on the carpet, on _them_ , flickered by too quickly for him to stop it.  
  
 _Yes, I am aware of that… I’m trying not to be too aware of it, however, at the moment…_ Charles tightened his grip on Erik’s hand again. His fingers felt a little bit warmer now. _But, listen, Erik: she did not succeed. She didn’t break us.  
  
How can you say—  
  
Because she didn’t. You’re still here, and I’m still here. Isn’t that what matters?_  
  
Yes. It was.  
  
They clung together in the wreckage of the room and borrowed strength from each other. Maybe there would be enough to share.  
  
After a minute Charles breathed out, softly, against Erik’s shoulder. _I think I’d like to shower, if you wouldn’t mind.  
  
Of course. _Anything. Anything that might help. He reached into the bathroom with a thought, and nudged the metal control handles. They were complicated, because Charles liked his luxurious and opulent shower, but Erik had been in that shower enough times to know how everything worked.   
  
The last time, they’d almost broken one of the jets in the tub, in an overabundance of enthusiasm. But Charles probably wouldn’t want to share the shower with him ever again, and Erik swallowed, hard, against the ache in his throat, in his chest, in his heart.  
  
 _Is there anything else you need? I could…we could call someone, if you’re in pain…  
  
No, it’s all right. It’s probably not as bad as you think.   
  
Yes it is._ He’d been there for it. He knew.  
  
 _No, really, I think it’s—  
  
Stop trying to make me feel better, Charles. _Steam floated lazily toward them, out of the bathroom. The rush of the water filled the air, as if it could make up for all the silence.   
  
Charles sighed. “Erik…” Erik almost let go of him, out of sheer surprise at hearing his voice out loud.  
  
Charles kept talking into his shoulder, quietly. “I’m all right, I promise. Or I will be. We will be. And I’m not just trying to make you feel better. Though I’d like to do that as well. I’ll feel better if you feel better, all right?” The words, said aloud, hung in the void around them and built bridges in every direction. Insubstantial, spindly bridges, the weight of a human voice, but present nonetheless.  
  
Erik gazed down at him, and managed to whisper, “All right…”  
  
“Shower?”  
  
“Yes…don’t stand up. You know I can carry you.” He’d done it before. He hoped he could this time. He no longer quite trusted his own arms. But Charles needed help.  
  
“You don’t have to, but I’m hardly going to argue.” Charles leaned into Erik’s hold as if he actually felt safe there. Erik tried not to think about that.  
  
He set Charles, carefully, on his feet in the shower. Charles closed his eyes, leaned against the accepting wall, and let the water spill through his hair, over his face, across his pale skin.   
  
The florescent overhead lamps wrapped them in unkind brightness. Their glare reflected the tiny bit of diluted pinkness that, mixed with water, swirled its way down the drain. Even after that, the light was merciless; it came back up to highlight every fragile bone in Charles’s body.   
  
Erik took a step back, suddenly afraid to even brush against him, and then took another step, putting terrified distance between them. How could he possibly offer any help? How could Charles still trust him to stand there, to be in the same space, to touch him?  
  
 _Erik?  
  
I—I can’t—I have to go._  
  
He had the impression that Charles wanted to say something then, but their eyes met, and Charles looked away. _Of course. Go, if you need to._ No reproach. No recrimination.   
  
No argument, either. He should have expected that, been prepared for it, but it hit him like a fist to the stomach.  
  
He stepped backwards again, and then fled the heat of the bathroom and the weight of Charles’s averted gaze.  
  
Out in the sitting room, scattered scraps of clothing and twisted metal mocked him with his own ineffectiveness. He hadn’t been able to stop it. He hadn’t been able to do anything. He hadn’t been able to do anything other than hurt Charles, the one person in the world who had believed that Erik might be capable of _not_ hurting others.  
  
Charles had said he’d be all right. That they’d be all right. Was that possible? Erik wanted it to be true, desperately, but he just didn’t know.  
  
He tried to breathe normally, tried to be calm. If he could be calm, he could go back in and help Charles. If Charles wanted his help. If there was anything left to be done. Rage, he thought, and serenity.  
  
He picked up the twisted shapes of the fireplace poker, and the bookends, and the silver-plated letter opener, and, after a moment’s consideration, crumpled them all into a tiny ball and threw them as far as he could out the window and buried them in the earth, where he couldn’t hear their metal sounds anymore. What else?  
  
He stacked the fallen books as neatly as he could. The shelf was broken, but he couldn’t do anything about that at the moment. At least he could make the books tidy.  
  
Some of the chess pieces had fallen to the carpet. He put those back, too, and reset the game while he was there; they’d never recapture it anyway. The chessmen felt solid in his hands. Little anchors of normality.  
  
The piles of papers on Charles’s desk were crooked; he couldn’t remember if they’d been crooked before, but he straightened them, just in case. Charles liked expensive paper; the note at the top, addressed to some scientific journal, brushed through Erik’s hands like silk.  
  
His gaze fell on the carpet. Three small dark red spots winked back up at him, as if they had every right to be there. But they didn’t match the rest of the design.  
  
He stared at the little rust-colored specks until they spun and blurred in his vision. Maybe he should just burn the carpet. Or the entire room. But Charles probably wouldn’t want that. Hell, the carpet might be some sort of Xavier family heirloom. The desk, and the bookshelves, certainly were. Would Charles care about family heirlooms, though, after… After.  
  
Maybe he could get the blood out of the carpet. Blood was partly iron, and iron was one of his specialties, wasn’t it? Surely he could manage something. Some sort of cleanup. Some kind of repair. Perhaps if he could remove the blood from the carpet, he could remove the entire nightmare, and nothing would have happened.  
  
He could still feel the echoes of Charles’s pain, sizzling along phantom nerve endings, and he was thinking about heirloom carpets and housekeeping. Erik self-diagnosed this as, probably, some sort of shock.  
  
He hadn’t, he realized, heard any sounds from the shower in… too long.  
  
He spun around and raced back into the bathroom. The steam collided with him like a manifestation of guilt, given form in superheated mist.   
  
Charles had remained more or less in the same place, but had slid down the wall and was sitting against it, legs folded beneath him. He was looking down, at his hands; usually so animated, they rested in absolute stillness on one knee. Erik couldn’t tell whether the wetness, splashed and pooled over those hands, came from tears, or just the detritus of the falling water.  
  
He looked up, genuinely astonished, as Erik plunged into the shower at his side. _Charles?!  
  
You didn’t leave?  
  
How could I?  
  
You said—  
  
I thought you wouldn’t want—  
  
Please don’t leave me alone with this—  
  
Of course not!  
  
I love you.  
  
I love you._  
  
That last thought, from both of them, to both of them, settled into place with absolute certainty and spread out to encompass the entire world.  
  
Charles leaned against him, and sighed, and Erik felt the weight of their shoulders press together, and some of the panic, slowly, slipped away. Suddenly the room was their space again. And they were still a _them._ Still together.   
  
“Always,” Charles said, out loud, and put one of his hands on Erik’s knee instead of his own. A promise.  
  
“Always. Can I touch you?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
He ran his fingers along Charles’s arm, following the path of tiny water droplets. He paused when he came to a ring of dark bruises, beginning to emerge in angry display on the thin wrist. The droplets, not caring, continued their downward journey, and fell with unheard splashes into the rest of the water around them.   
  
Erik rested his fingers just below the wounded skin, and felt the flutter of the pulse, reassuringly present, steady, mostly calm now. _Is there anything I can do to help with this?  
  
Other than what you are doing?...Probably not. _Charles tipped his head against Erik’s shoulder. The water still tangled in his eyelashes, turning them dark, but somehow not looking quite as much like tears anymore. _It’s a good thing I own a lot of long-sleeved sweaters, I suppose.  
  
You’re amazing.  
  
No._ Charles laced his fingers through Erik’s, holding on. The water flowed across their joined hands and carried the ugliness away with it, away from them. _We can be amazing together, though._  
  
Steam filled the room, and the shower splashed gently down from above, making bright little noises when flying drops hit tiled walls. And the warmth of the night came back, slowly, and stretched out around them, in quiet agreement.


End file.
